$80 Million Emergency Rent Assistance Goes To 22,600 Households

Homes on N. 20th St. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government disbursed billion in emergency funding to provide direct financial assistance for people and families that had fallen behind on their rent.

The Milwaukee County Housing Division was the local government agency that passed the money along to organizations like Community Advocates to disburse to residents. “This became a very large program for us,” said James Mathy, Housing Division director.

In fact, the county ended up dispersing approximately $80 million in emergency rent assistance funds to over 22,600 unique households in Milwaukee County. “It’s by far the largest dollar amount that we ever disbursed in our service area,” Mathy told the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors‘ Committee on Health Equity, Human Needs and Strategic Planning.

Many people fell behind on rent during the COVID-19 pandemic as millions lost their jobs in the early months of the pandemic. Eviction moratoriums enacted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and later through executive order by President Joe Biden were struck down by the U.S. Supreme court. “So a lot of individuals fell pretty far behind in their rent,” Mathy said.

County residents could apply for assistance to pay back rent or to make future rent payments. Residents could meet the criteria for assistnace if they or someone in their household qualified for unemployment, lost income or experienced financial hardship due to the pandemic. “We fully believe that a lot of these individuals may have been evicted without these funds,” Mathy said, noting that the housing division considers the emergency rent assistance to have been a very successful program.

In November 2022, the county reported that 74% of people receiving assistance were making 30% or less of the county’s median household income, which is approximately $55,000 for families and $32,000 for individuals, according to U.S. Census Bureau data from 2017 to 2021. About 76% of recipients were African-American or Black households and 76% were women.

But, unfortunately, the funding for the program is running out. The funding came from two pandemic stimulus bills passed in 2020 and 2021 respectvely. Funds from the first bill expired at the end of 2022 and it’s expected that the county will exhaust funds from the second bill by the end of August, Mathy said. The division will primarily focus on responding to applications that have already been filed and disbersing funds using until the money is gone.

The was the largest eviction prevention program the county’s housing division had ever administered. “We’ve done a lot of crisis housing and different things like homeless outreach for folks in active crisis,” Mathy said. “This was finally an opportunity to receive funding to do something upstream and proactive to keep people in housing before they lost it.”